As energy and environment related pressures become increasingly high, new energy vehicle, thanks to its advantages in environmental protection and energy conservation, becomes one of the major research focuses in vehicle industry. Taking electric vehicles for example, on-board power supplies mainly include rechargeable batteries and replaceable batteries. Compared with rechargeable battery, an electric vehicle with a replaceable battery is supplied with power by swapping its battery. Therefore, this energy replenish pattern is proved to be one of the most popular technologies in the industry because of its shorter operation time, convenient automation operation and longer lifespan.
Since the battery swapping mechanism on chassis of a battery swapping electric vehicle is typically quite heavy, it is necessary to provide several locking mechanisms to lock and unlock the battery swapping mechanism. At present, a set of automatic unlocking equipments are used to unlock several locking mechanisms, each of which is for example provided with a torque spanner driven by a servo motor. However, since each locking mechanism has many parts, which is sophisticated in structure and occupies larger space, thus increasing cost in manufacturing the electric vehicle.
Accordingly, there is a need in the art for a new locking mechanism for electric vehicle power battery to solve the previously mentioned problem.